Tag Archives: Living Dolls owner

I got the word in the Lost Angels Chat room from Big Daddy about Marty after he heard the bad news from Joe who heads the Man Tour

The story was that Marty, who is a part owner of the Living Dolls Go Go Bar on Walking Street, was unable to avoid rear ending the tour bus after it cut in front of his motorcycle. He had his son sitting on the motorcycle seat behind him and the two were on their way to the Sriracha Tiger Zoo.

Both Joe and Marty took Big Daddy, Big John Hawkeye and me on the Man Tour. Big Daddy tells me Marty’s got at best two months to live after suffering massive brain damage when a tour bus pulled in front of him. Around ten days ago I had a tour bus pull in front of my HOnda Civic on Sukamvit as it weaved in and out of traffic. A few days before that on my way back from Pattaya Immigration I came within five feet of having a tour bus run my motorbike down from behind. I then poured the coals to my motorbike driving faster than I normally would have because I wanted to stay far in front of the tour bus. Then, seeing a slight congestion of traffic at the light where I wanted to make a left turn to Praternmak Hill, I slowed down considerably almost coming to a dead stop. The tour bus roared up from behind me, passed me on my right then cut ahead of me and turned abruptly in front of me cutting me off so I could not make my left turn until it had turned first. Unbelievable. And then the SOB driver gave me his horn.

That evening I drove my motorbike to Greg’s Kitchen, a favorite restaurant of mine. I approached from the South driving up Second Road to Drinking Street which is where Greg’s is located. BUt when I got within forty meters of making my right turn into Drinking Street, the traffic suddenly turned impossible. There must have been a knot of three tour buses at a standstill and cars and motorbikes were unable to get around them. I was pissed. Here I had just learned that a friend will likely die in the hospital due to a collision with a tour bus and I’ve had too much experience with the imbecile drivers. I had even watched as I stood just outside the entrance of the Leo Bar on Soi 18 a tour bus squeeze between a parked pickup truck and a temporary small group of vehicles on his left. The overly anxious tour bus driver scraped the entire left side of the parked pickup truck as he squeezed through, and after damaging the pickup, simply continued on. Right on the spot was a security guard for the small hotel next to Leo Bar. The guard simply watched. Didn’t do squat. So here I am completely unable to even find a 30 inch gap between the tour buses and other vehicles and I’m just 40 meters from where I need to make my turn. So I simply lifted the front end of my motorbike over the curb and onto the sidewalk. Then I lifted the rear of my bike so that it also cleared the curb. I then simply walked my motorbike down the sidewalk. If I were a Thai I would have driven it, but even driving forty meters down a sidewalk was too much for my pride. Once I walked my bike to the Drinking Street turn in I started its engine and drove the remaining fifty meters to Greg’s Kitchen.

The projection is for a 20 % increase in Chinese tourists into Thailand for the coming year over this year. Whenever I look at the passengers in these tour buses It seems that they are nearly always Chinese. Pattaya’s streets were not designed for these behemoths so the traffic is getting to be pretty horrendous at times due to the tour buses alone. As for Marty….I think I have a pretty good idea of how his accident went down regardless of what anyone else might think.